Two hundred years ago the citizens made their Creator ashamed of them by succumbing to a band of exhausted and half-starved buccaneers. Sir Henry Morgan and his men nearly perished of hunger in trying to cross the isthmus while Don Juan Perez de Guzman, president of Panama, was praying and eating, and keeping tab on Morgan’s progress and his own prayers, instead of pleasing God by killing pirates. God is not always pleased with mere praying. He favors doing, and sometimes fighting, as the following narrative would seem to indicate.
Montebello, the Colón of olden times, was situated near the mouth of the Chagres River. Sir Henry Morgan captured and sacked the town and sent word to Don Juan Perez de Guzman that he would call upon him soon in Panama. He was desirous of seeing the city where gold-dust blew about and blinded people, where the cathedral was crusted over with shells of pearl and filled with ornaments of silver, and the trees were hung and festooned with jewels to keep them off the grass. He wanted his share. The world owed him a living, etc.
He made good his promise the next year (1670), thoroughly prepared for the work. He first captured Fort San Lorenzo that guarded or should have guarded the entrance of the river—and Don Juan P. de G., began to watch and pray. Don Juan considered himself a better man than the pirate, and thought that the Lord was with him. But he did wrong to think. Meanwhile, Captain Morgan, with 1,200 men and provisions for one day, started merrily up the Chagres River. Food was too bulky to carry, and about all he had would be needed by those he left in charge of San Lorenzo. Besides, he did not go to eat; he went to fight. He took, however, five large scows laden with artillery and ammunition to offset the thinking and praying of Don Juan. God helps them who help themselves, and Morgan was prepared to help himself.
Ambuscading parties showed themselves in the distance occasionally, but they were to do the watching part of Don Juan’s program and always retired before Morgan got near enough to shoot and eat any of them. Instead of fighting and letting him capture their food, they retired and ate the food themselves, saying: “He who eats and runs away will live to run another day.”
Poor Morgan! The food lasted one happy day. On the second day the 1,200 went hungry. On the third day they found the river obstructed by fallen trees. So a portion of the buccaneers carried the canoes over the obstacles while the rest cut their way through the dense vegetation beside the river. All of the artillery and ammunition that could not be thus transported had to be left. But Morgan kept right on to the surprise of the well-fed watchers.
RUINED TOWER OF OLD PANAMA
On the fourth day the filibusters found some dried hides at Torna Caballos, cut them into strips, made a stew and filled themselves. Such a meal ought to have staid by their stomachs for a week. At noon of the fifth day they found two bags of meal in the deserted village of Barbacoas, and accomplished the miracle of feeding 1,200 men with two bags of meal.
Some of the men were by this time so weak that they had to be carried into the boats, while many of those who could walk wanted to turn back. Yet they kept on, concluding that they might as well starve going forward as going backward.
On the sixth day they found a plantation with a barn full of maize, for the ambuscaders had expected them to starve or turn back before reaching this plantation, and had not destroyed the maize. Nor did they defend it. Their business was to watch, and they could not watch and fight at the same time. The 1,200 thus had their fill of breakfast food, and some to spare, and thus were revived and full of fight. They carried breakfast food to those in the canoes, who were too weak to walk, but not to eat.